Windows 7 sleep and hibernate issues

I have recently purchased a new desktop PC with Windows 7 Pro installed on it, and for a few weeks after I set it up, the sleep and hibernate functions worked fine in Windows. Currently, the sleep and hibernate system seems to be broken. Whenever I try to sleep or hibernate, the system will either turn off the display - which will not turn back on again, forcing me to reboot - and the computer will stay "awake"; that is, the fan stays on and computer will not enter sleep or hibernate mode. Alternatively, the computer will simply shut off, and when I power it back on, I am greeted with this message:

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\020711-32604-01.dmp
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-47861-0.sysdata.xml

I don't know how to troubleshoot the problem with this information, but I have tried other steps: I've enabled hibernate and sleep in Control Panel, toggeled hybrid sleep to see if that affected it, updated my graphics card driver, and ran a sleep check test with PassMarkSleeper. All to no avail.

I wonder if, because my CPU is overclocked, it does not support sleep or hibernate? I have my hyberfil.sys located in my main C: directory; should I relocate it, or change its size? I am really at a lost as to what the problem could possibly be! I just know that sleep and hybrid initially worked, and now they don't. I wonder if there is something that I might have changed (either within the registry or system files) which might have broken these power-saving features.

Hi Diogones, on my desktop, I never use sleep, hibernate or screen saver. All I have is for my monitor to turn off after 10 minutes. In the advanced settings, my hdd's are set to turn off after 20 minutes. (default setting). These settings have been used since first getting this same pc over 5 years ago without any trouble.

You cannot, as far as I am aware, relocate or change the size of the hiberfil.sys file, it's size must equal that of the installed RAM and must be on the System partition.

My first steps would be to update all drivers from the makers sites - NOT from MS/Windows Update; then check wireless, wired network and USB devices settings in Device Manager to ensure that nothing is set to power save/wake; uninstall any 'virtual' CD/DVD software; disconnect all external USB/Firewire devices except keyboard/mouse; drop all overclocks to default settings. Check the System logs in Windows Management for errors around the sleep/hibernate/wake periods.

With Blue Screen View you can find what is causing the BSODs and likely it will be easier to fix whatever is causing that.

Even if BlueScreenView doesn't pinpoint the exact cause, it will give some clues as to what's caused it and it makes it easy to find out what drivers were loaded at the time of the BSOD so you can update the outdated ones that are often a major cause of BSOD's.

You cannot, as far as I am aware, relocate or change the size of the hiberfil.sys file, it's size must equal that of the installed RAM and must be on the System partition.

The size doesn't have to equal the amount of installed RAM. Mine is 1.5GB and I have 2GB RAM. And it can be relocated as far as where it is physically on the system drive (not quite simple, but it can be done), and yes, it must be on the root of the system drive.

I would start with getting rid of the overclocking, and see how it goes from there. I don't advise updating drivers without a specific driver issue, which you don't particularly have.

When troubleshooting any issue, always start with the simple, and proceed to the complex. If you update a gob of drivers right now, you have a good chance of introducing even more issues, and complicating matters even further.

Create a fresh drive image before making system changes, in case you need to start over!

"The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Savvy?"—Captain Jack Sparrow "When you're troubleshooting, start with the simple and proceed to the complex."—M.O. Johns "Experience is what you get when you're looking for something else."—Sir Thomas Robert Deware. Unleash Windows

The Following User Says Thank You to bbearren For This Useful Post:

Thank you everyone for the replies! I'll try to answer each of you as directly as possible.

You are correct Satrow; it appears you cannot move or edit the hiberfile out of the root windows folder. Thank you for your multiple suggestions. I have followed through on them, but do you know of a freeware driver updater/scanner that I could obtain? I have a lot of drivers, and I know they haven't been updated in a few months, so it would be time consuming to update them individually myself.

I may have to resign myself to your approach Roderunner, as I haven't found a solution yet!

This Blue Screen View is very helpful, Ruirib! As a matter of fact, while I still can't made head or tails out of the reports, I have included them as .txt file attachments. It will take a little decoding to view them with a standard document editor/creator, (unless you have Blue Screen View as well) but then you can view them and maybe help me decipher them.

A good point Bbearren; don't go overboard, or fix what isn't broken. But I may have to be prepared to update the drivers as a last resort. I just get the feeling that it is some sort of registry or driver change, as sleep and hibernate did work initially, but stopped after a few months. So I am just wondering if I touched something I shouldn't have.

One of the screens points to an Atheros driver, which usually is a wireless network adapter driver. Do you have one of those?
The other two messages point to a driver that won't go into sleep or hibernation mode. For now, the atheros driver seems the culprit. Try updating it and see if it fixes the problem.

If you have had Automatic Updates enabled, Microsoft may have updated a driver or two for you. You may find that rolling back to an older driver is a better choice than updating a driver. I make it a practice not to use MS drivers, so I have Automatic Update set to notify only.

As for drivers in general, unless there is a specific issue with a particular drive, such as not getting full functionality out of a piece of hardware, there is seldom any actual need to update to the latest drivers. Some graphics cards do get improvements from updated drivers, but be prepared to rollback if things get glitchy.

Otherwise, there simply is no need. I'm running Windows 7 on a Dell D800, which did not pass the Windows 7 compatibility test, nor is it recommended by Dell for Windows 7. It does not have any Windows 7 drivers installed except for my Microsoft mouse (the touchpad still works with the XP driver) and my HP printer. All the rest date from 2005 and 2006. I did Vista-ize my graphics XP driver; it's not digitally signed and dates 7/2005, and it won't do aero, but other than that it's just fine.

The laptop does everything it's supposed to do, sleeps and hibernates, etc.

If yours used to do everything it was supposed to do, your best choice may well be to find the driver that is causing the issue, and rollback to the previous driver

Create a fresh drive image before making system changes, in case you need to start over!

"The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Savvy?"—Captain Jack Sparrow "When you're troubleshooting, start with the simple and proceed to the complex."—M.O. Johns "Experience is what you get when you're looking for something else."—Sir Thomas Robert Deware. Unleash Windows

It was in fact the Atheros driver: that was what my WNDA3100 Netgear External USB Network Adapter was using. Unfortunately, it wasn't the compatible version for Windows 7, (it was meant for Vista) so that meant that it must have been conflicting with Windows 7's sleep and hibernate protocol. I went to the Netgear website, and downloaded the latest version: 3.5.0.7. Then I uninstalled the old driver and ran the new version setup. Worked like a charm, and as an added bonus, I can now use the Netgear Smart Wizard Network Manager software that comes with the adapter (since previously I couldn't with the Vista version of the driver). I'm not sure if I will though; Windows does a fine enough job of managing my wireless connection. Funnily enough, the driver is still listed as coming from Atheros Communications Inc., so I guess that must be a subsidary of Netgear, or vice versa. Cheers to some great technical support!

I have a quick question Bbearren: while you are absolutely correct int hat Automatic Updates should not be...well automatic, when you install a new piece of hardware, do you just ignore whatever Windows automatically installs? After heading to the OEM's website and getting their driver version, do you uninstall and remove the automatic Windows driver? Because what happened in my case was, I plugged in the network adapter, Windows installed their version (the Vista edition) and I just assumed that it was correct, as the device was working and I had Internet. If I had been more critical of Windows' choice, I might have found that drive awhile ago, although not by much, as the driver was only updated on 11/01/10 according to Netgear's website.

I'll take your advice, and refrain from going hog-wild with driver updates.

I have a quick question Bbearren: while you are absolutely correct int hat Automatic Updates should not be...well automatic, when you install a new piece of hardware, do you just ignore whatever Windows automatically installs? After heading to the OEM's website and getting their driver version, do you uninstall and remove the automatic Windows driver? Because what happened in my case was, I plugged in the network adapter, Windows installed their version (the Vista edition) and I just assumed that it was correct, as the device was working and I had Internet. If I had been more critical of Windows' choice, I might have found that drive awhile ago, although not by much, as the driver was only updated on 11/01/10 according to Netgear's website.

I'll take your advice, and refrain from going hog-wild with driver updates.

When I install a new piece of hardware, I usually install the drivers first, then connect the hardware. If the "Found new hardware" wizard pops up, I direct it to the drivers that are already installed. On occaision I have to direct Windows to install an unsigned driver.

If the hardware then works as it should and does everything it's supposed to do, the drivers become a permanent fixture; I don't update them just for the sake of having the latest drivers.

As I said previously, new releases of graphics drivers can add functionality or improve performance, but be prepared to rollback in case of conflicts. I'm not much of a gamer, so I don't update graphics drivers unless some problem develops.

Create a fresh drive image before making system changes, in case you need to start over!

"The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Savvy?"—Captain Jack Sparrow "When you're troubleshooting, start with the simple and proceed to the complex."—M.O. Johns "Experience is what you get when you're looking for something else."—Sir Thomas Robert Deware. Unleash Windows

Please use care in automatically installing hardware drivers from the Microsoft Update feature.
Sometimes the manufacturer-provided updates also include utilities for optimization/customization, which Microsoft may not include.
You may wish to FIRST read the reason an update was included by Microsoft, and decline if it may not apply to your system or the manufacturer has a new update.

Well this whole experience, plus everybody's advice here, has sure taught me a valuable lesson: drivers and Windows Update just don't mix. While you may be correct about Atheros' "Wake On LAN" feature Bobprimak, I'm afraid the driver versions I had for my network adapter didn't seem to have that feature. Even the included Smart Wizard software with the driver doesn't offer such an option. I have however turned off the option within Device Manager for the adapter, "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power," which I think is a recommended setting to get Windows to sleep with USB devices.

You brought up an excellent point about checking the BIOS. As part of my troubleshooting, I did inspect the BIOS and it had sleep and hibernate enabled. I fiddled with the different BIOS' sleep settings before I found out that the network driver was the problem. I was actually half tempted to update the BIOS via a down loadable driver from my motherboard's website, but once I found out how difficult it was - for my particular model anyway - to save overclock profiles when flashing a BIOS, I nixed the idea.